Man, am I glad to have that over with! The 5K was yesterday morning. It was a little chilly when we got there; between that and my nerves, I felt like I was hopping from foot to foot until we got started.

Here we are, waiting for the festivities to begin:

Once we all lined up to start, my nerves really kicked in:

Once we got going though, it wasn’t so bad. I did have to slow down several times. My dad kept his pace and literally ran circles around me so as not to leave me in the dust. The other runners thought that was pretty funny.

We came in at exactly the same time (see the other photos at Flickr for the finish line shots!) but for some reason the official stats have me coming in a minute and a half ahead of him. (They also have my number wrong, but whatever.)

I’m so glad my dad ran it with me — he’s a great motivator and I would have slacked off even more if he hadn’t been by my side. While we ran, Patrick and my mom stayed and waited until we came back around the corner. Then we showered up and went for a nice lunch at Java Mio.

I don’t know if I’ll be doing one of these again, but I’m glad I did this one!

A couple of weeks ago I got a digital voice recorder to use when I do interviews. I got tired of keeping track of tapes (do you know how hard it is to label those little-bitty ones?) and of running out of tape just when the conversation got good. So here’s what I use now:

It stores up to 130 hours of sound and you can organize everything into different folders. Then you can upload the files to your computer so that they stay with the story you’re working on and be stored with it forever. It also came with software that you can use to play it on the computer at any speed so you can slow it down for transcribing. (And the weird thing is that the person’s voice doesn’t sound distorted at high or low speeds. It just sounds like they’re really excited or maybe having a stroke.)

Here’s another thing I love: Perdue Perfect Portions chicken breasts. Each package comes with six chicken breasts of just the right size, individually wrapped.

The chicken breasts you get in the styrofoam trays always have 3 or 4 to a pack so if you’re cooking for two you have to figure out what to do with the extras. (Also, don’t those chicken breasts seem awfully thick? They take forever to thaw out.)

And last but not least, Freakonomics. Patrick and I listened to this on a car trip a couple of weeks ago and it was just fascinating.

The premise is that this guy who had a really great mind for economics was unfortunately bored to tears by all of the subjects it usually addresses. So he used what he knew about studying trends and correlations to study some really interesting questions, like:

If drug dealers make so much money, why do they still live with their mothers?

Which is more dangerous to a house full of kids — a gun or a pool?

Why did violent crime plummet in the mid-90s, right when every prediction was that we were headed for a “bloodbath” of gang violence?

There was also an interesting section on baby names that explained why some names are incredibly popular for a few years, and whether a bad name predicts a bad outcome.

Last night after dinner, we took Lola for a walk. The playground on the corner was deserted, so we closed all the gates and let Lola run around off leash. Good gracious, does that dog like to run at top speed. She also likes to go down the slide with Patrick.

We went back tonight and I brought the camera with me. There’s no sound, but you can imagine the sonic boom.

(We learned pretty quickly that people around here don’t pronounce the first R in Petersburg. They also say “air” instead of “our,” as in, “Stop by air office and a member of air staff will be happy to help you.”)

Anyhoo, the other day I decided that if I’m going to do this 5K thing I better figure out exactly how long 5K is. All my training has been around in circles, so I have no idea what distance I’ve gone.

So I clicked around on the Gmaps pedometer site and found that a walk to Petersburg and back was about 5K. I leashed up the dog, and off we went.

Petersburg is just starting to bounce back from some really rough times. The downtown area has lots of little antique shops (of the fancy variety and the dusty, dig-your-own-treasure variety) and great restaurants.

It’s got quite a lot of history too. There were major battles here, including the Siege of Petersburg during the Civil War. Before that, the Marquis de Lafayette (who was born 250 years ago today, thank you very much) and his troops set up artillery on the hill overlooking Petersburg to fire on British troops. Hence the name “Colonial Heights.”

Anyway. Lola and I walked to Petersburg and did a little loop around downtown. On the walk back, her little paws were dragging and I was staaarving. But 5K doesn’t seem like such a big whoop. When you’re walking, anyway …